


What’s in a Name

by Raeolu



Category: A Hat in Time (Video Game)
Genre: A different answer is “let’s give her a new name for this fic/blog/etc”, But that’s boring, Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, Ok so everyone wonders if Hat Kid has an actual name, but that’s also boring, i propose a third solution!, the easiest answer is “yeah it’s Hat Kid”
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:20:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27970682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raeolu/pseuds/Raeolu
Summary: “How the *peck* did ye make that sound, lassie? It sounded like one a that blasted DJ’s attempts at an orchestra, but all at tha same time!”((Of course Hat Kid had a name. Everyone had a name! Hers just happened to be... difficult to pronounce if you exist in linear time.))
Relationships: Ha ha no, She’s tiny child
Comments: 22
Kudos: 137





	1. Little Girl

The mobster looked at the little girl before him and wrinkled his brow. “Small girl has won fight. Is worthy of Mafia’s recognition.”

The girl in question focused really really hard. The language people on this planet used was simple enough, but she still wasn’t fully used to it. Especially with the weird dialect the people on this island seemed to use.

The mobster nodded, decisive. “What is name of small girl?”

Oh. Oh! The alien child quickly hid a grin behind her hand. He wanted to know her name! She was the best translator ever!

Huh. She’d been starting to wonder if no one here had names, since she hadn’t heard anyone use one on the island. Or, well… ok she’d been told that each planet would have a different culture, but there was no way that everyone on that planet was named Mafia. That just wouldn’t make sense!

Names were supposed to be something special and unique to you! Something that no one else would ever have. That’s why they were so hard to say!

She puffed up a little in pride, adjusting her hat. She could say her whole name with no mistakes at all! She’d been the first one in her training group to manage the temporal twists necessary. She was the coolest!

She took a deep breath, and- ah! She’d almost forgotten. Embarrassed, she reached into her bag and pulled out the Piece of Time she’d just gathered. It shimmered softly in her hands, threads of it-was and it-is and it-will-be all interweaving into a densely packed tapestry of energy and untapped potential.

She put it down on the ground and nudged it away with her foot. The Mafia in front of her stared at it, confused, and she glared at him. She wasn’t a little kid anymore! She didn’t need to cheat!

Breathing in, the girl felt for the weave of time in the air around them. No need to go too far – a few seconds on either side of the moment she needed would be good enough. No, not that one. Too wiggly. No, that one doesn’t taste right. Ah! There! Perfect!

Just as the increasingly confused mobster was about to ask a question, the girl opened her mouth and said who she would become. A split second before that, she said who she had been. In between the two, she said who she is. Between one heartbeat and the next, the sounds harmonized together, combining into the truth of who she was.

“What is sound? Where did little girl hide speakers?” The mobster looked confused, twisting back and forth.

The girl frowned. A different talker? She could speak her name just fine on her own! She was a big kid! See – she had the big kid hat and everything! She pointed at it in case he’d missed it somehow, then crossed her arms and sulked. And she’d done such a good job with her name, too!

“Is in hat? Ah ha! Mafia is too smart to be fooled by hidden trap.” The mobster grinned at her, so she scowled some more. “No being upset, small child. Was very pretty noise.”

He… thought her name was pretty? She was pretty sure that was what he’d said. Well, uh, he was right! The girl unfolded her arms and started bouncing her umbrella off the cobblestones. She had the best name!

Alright, fun was fun, but she had work to do. She scooped up the Time Piece off the ground and stuck her tongue out at him. Just because he was being nice now didn’t mean that she wasn’t still taking her fuel source back!

The mobster was starting to look nervous as she continued to bounce her umbrella around, so the girl decided it was time to get going. With one final wave, she dashed off around the corner and pressed the Recall to Ship button on the inside of her hat. One Time Piece down, the rest to go! She’d finish this off in no time.

oOo

A very confused Mafia peered around the corner where he’d seen the tiny girl disappear seconds before, only to find the alleyway completely empty.

“Little girl? Mafia still did not learn name of child.” He looked around for a few moments, but no one answered.

He huffed. “Mafia will name child, then. Is young person. Name will be Little Girl.”

He crossed his arms and nodded to himself, proud. “Is good name. Mafia is very creative.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Multilingual Hat Kid rights!! I was always impressed that she seems to be able to understand (or at least go with the flow of) what’s being said to her, despite literally being an alien. Whatever language she signed her name in on Snatcher’s contracts, it definitely wasn’t English.


	2. Some Girl

“Alright now, time ta be headin off to wherever yeh go when yer not here. We’ll be havin no wee lassies runnin about mah set without supervision,” the Conductor said, motioning a group of train owls to put back the cart that had once held a Time Piece.

The wee lassie in question snickered, putting away her latest reclaimed treasure. Maybe the rowdy bird had been too busy to notice, but she _did_ have super good vision. Super duper good! She’d been running circles around train owls and CAW agents all day! She’d be surprised if there was a secret place or treasure on that set that she _hadn’t_ gotten into!

The Conductor muttered something else, but she couldn’t quite make it out. It’d been hard for her to get used to his heavy accent, but after a full day together, she could understand most of what he was saying. Even when she didn’t, he tended to point and yell a lot, which she could use to guess. She was resourceful like that!

The Conductor gave her a thoughtful look. Or at least she assumed he was giving her a look, based on his body language. She… honestly couldn’t tell if he had eyes? Eh, it didn’t really matter.

“Come ta think of it, lassie. Ah dinnae think I ever caught yer name.” He turned to face her fully, awaiting a response. “A mysterious newcomer may be just the right thing ta liven up ma films, but we can’t be forgettin yer name on them posters.”

Let’s see, something, catching, something, posters… name! He wanted her to say her name! She nodded her head up and down, grinning.

Her mentor would be so proud of her! Names were tricky to say unless you were old or skilled enough – you needed pretty fine time stream control to overlap the words you needed. But she was super duper good at time things! They’d even given her her own ship to run all by herself, you know! Sure it had been kind of hard to reach the pedals before she fixed the chair, and it was kind of lonely with just Rumbi for company, and she’d beaten Corgi Quest so many times she could probably play it with her eyes closed… but it was her ship and she was the captain and that meant she was the best!

The Conductor cleared his throat. Oh right! Her name!

The girl took a deep breath and spoke for three seconds and one second and no seconds and two seconds all at once, layering sounds on top of each other as she made sure to line the edges up just so. Good pronunciation was all about timing the starting and ending bits right.

She looked up the Conductor, only to find him gaping like a startled fish.

“How the *peck* did ye make that sound, lassie? It sounded like one a that blasted DJ’s attempts at an orchestra, but all at tha same time!” He flailed his arms around, probably attempting to mimic Grooves. She snickered – he wasn’t doing a very good job.

Wait. Why was he acting surprised? He was the one who’d asked her to say her name. Did he not think she was old enough to do it yet? She puffed her cheeks out in embarrassment. Just because she was a little bit smaller than normal captain age didn’t mean she was still a baby. She knew how to say her name right. Rude bird man.

The Conductor was still sputtering, accent thicker than ever. She could barely understand a word he was saying anymore. Ok, it was pretty funny watching his feathers poof up like that as he squawked.

Well, that seemed like her cue to go. She had what she’d came here for. She waved goodbye to him and started wandering off the set just to see what he’d do, and the noises he started making were hilarious! She started giggling as a train owl ran onto the set, caught sight of the Conductor, and turned right around and ran back off again. Seemed like it was time to give him some space.

With a jaunty salute, she jogged off around the corner to start making her way back to her ship. The burst of sound that followed her sent all the nearby owls and CAW agents scurrying, and soon she was safely out of sight.

oOo

“Lassie! Lassie! Ah still don’t ken yer name!” the Conductor hollered after the disappearing figure.

Well peck, there she went. And if the last time was any judge, he wouldn’t be able to find her until she came back on her own. He grumbled to himself, grabbing a notebook.

What had that noise been, anyways. Some kinda musical puzzle? Was he meant to solve it to find her name or something? He scribbled a few bars before giving up – music was always (ugh) DJ Grooves’ forte, not his.

“S-sir?” A nervous-looking post owl came up to him, holding a clipboard. “The designs for the new film’s posters are all set and are almost ready for printing. What name should we use for the lead actor?”

The Conductor sighed. “We’ll have ta go with a placeholder fer now. Just put her down as Some Girl.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the nice comments!! These drabbles are fun to write ✨


	3. Darling

For the first time since she’d met him, DJ Grooves looked speechless. He stared at the girl for a while, like he’d never truly seen her before. His beak opened like he was trying to say something, but if he did she couldn’t hear it. Maybe this language had secret words? She listened harder, and managed to hear the next thing he said.

“Well color me surprised, darling. I had no idea it was possible to make such a lovely sound without at least four other band members working together.”

The girl bounced a bit in pride. He thought her name was awesome! He was right, too. She was getting super good at saying it, too! With all the broken Time Pieces she’d been dealing with lately, she was getting a ton of practice with messing with the time stream. Compared to manually untangling a paradox of mismatched eras and memories, layering a few seconds on top of each other was easy peasy! She flashed him a victory pose, grinning.

DJ Grooves’s expression looked more like he was reevaluating some fundamental part of his life than like he was congratulating her, but she got it. She gave him a pat on his flipper. It was alright – he didn’t need to feel insecure. His name might not be as cool as hers, but it still did a good job of describing him. She gave him a thumbs up to be extra nice.

The large penguin coughed and readjusted his afro. “Thank you, darling.”

Poise mostly restored, he leaned a flipper on the passport-printing booth he was standing behind, her unfinished application lying on top. “Ah. I’m sorry Darling. I’m… not sure I caught it all. Any chance you could run your name by me again?”

Wait, what was he saying? Catching words? Running them? Words weren’t physical objects – that didn’t make any sense. Oh, it must be some kind of expression. The girl nodded to herself, satisfied. She was really getting the hang of this language!

Oh, Grooves looked like he wanted a response. She was pretty sure she’d heard the word “name” in there, so she just decided to say hers again, this time pointing at herself while she said it just in case he’d misunderstood.

It was hard for her to see the DJ’s expression through his sunglasses, but he seemed to be staring at the passport-printer’s keyboard. She waited a bit, but he didn’t seem to be moving, so she waved a hand in front of his face.

“Oh! Sorry, darling. I got a little lost in thought.” He looked down at the keyboard again, this time pulling an exaggerated pout. “I don’t think we have the right letters here to spell your gorgeous name.”

The girl raised up on her tippy-toes to peek at the keyboard. He was right! None of those squiggles even looked like real letters! Looking around, they did seem to match the writing on some of the posters she’d seen though, so they must be for whatever language they were speaking now.

She stuck her tongue out at the keyboard. Take that! She was way better at speaking other languages than it was!

DJ Grooves laughed. “That’s the spirit, darling! Who needs to read your name when they can look at your gorgeous self!”

He spun around and struck a pose, pulling out a camera. “Now say cheese, darling! Let’s make this passport photo the best picture ever!”

oOo

DJ Grooves watched the little darling scamper off, vanishing to wherever she wandered off to in between sets. He waited for a minute or two, before he couldn’t take it anymore.

Bursting into motion, he flung a flipper out to the side and struck a pose, crying out to the moon penguins milling around. “Someone bring me a pad of music paper and a pen, immediately!”

They scattered, matching his energy. Within moments, his pen was flashing across the page, sketching down music notes and key signatures and tempo changes, all layered on top of each other to form a larger whole.

“What’s gotten into you, boss?” asked a somewhat nervous helper. “Don’t we already have a film in the works?”

“Yes, yes,” the DJ responded absently, chewing on the tip of his pen for a second before it returned to the page. “We’re still working on that, don’t you worry.”

He added another note with a flourish, continuing to write. “I just got the musical inspiration of a lifetime, courtesy of one little Darling!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There may or may not be another chapter I've been messing with, if anyone would be interested in one with the Snatcher.


	4. Kid

The girl jumped as the scroll in her hands rolled up and vanished in a poof of purple smoke. A moment later it reappeared, now in the massive hands of the person before her.

“Ahahahaha! That’s one more contract standing between you and your soul, kid!”

She stuck her tongue out at the Snatcher. Bleeh! He didn’t scare her! He was just a giant purple noodle man who liked mailboxes and being all floaty. Floating wasn’t scary – it was really cool! One day soon she was going to figure out how he did it, and then _she’d_ be the giant floaty noodle! Take that!

“Alright, I’ll just add my stamp at the bottom, and we’ll be all set! One fresh soul contract under the name of…” He trailed off, squinting at something.

The girl quickly stopped trying grab the tip of his tail to see what it was made of. Had he noticed? He’d looked so focused on that piece of paper!

The Snatcher curved his body over and pointed at the bottom of the form. “Kid, I have no idea how to read this.”

Oh good, he hadn’t noticed the tail grab. She looked up at the part of the paper he was pointing to. Let’s see, fancy scribbles, weird blocky letters like she’d seen on those movie posters, pictures of the forest, and… oh, her name! She gave a thumbs up, and he rolled his eyes at her. Oooooh, she hadn’t even known you could do that without puupi- pewwpi- paowpi- eye dots! Without those little eye dots!

“No, you little brat. I get that you wrote it. But I’ve never seen this script before – how do I know it’s really your name and not some kind of meaningless garbage you wrote.”

He loomed over her head, jack-o-lantern grin widening until it was larger than her entire face. “Are you trying to get out of our deal?”

She snorted. If he wanted to be scary, it wasn’t working. His face looked exactly like a bouncy ball she’d had back on her ship. His face was even squishy! See – squiiiish!

The Snatcher reeled back from the contact and started scrubbing at his face like he’d been slapped with something stinky. Rude! Rude noodle man! It was his fault she was wandering through that smelly swamp in the first place! She blew a raspberry at him and stole the scroll back while he was distracted.

He made a really funny sound when he realized she’d gotten it back and tried to grab it again, but held back when she pointed at her name.

Slowly and carefully, she ran her finger over each part of her name as she said it out loud. It was a bit tricky to get hold of the right kind of moments to layer while in the middle of whatever the Snatcher’s weird contract void was, but she managed.

He just stared at her as she finished, unmoving, before his tail started to twitch in agitation. Aww, he looked like a big cat! She snickered.

“Kid…” he started, then paused, then started again. “I have no idea where to even start there. Is that actually your name?”

She nodded, grinning. It was the best name!

The ghost looked somewhat unnerved. “How is that even a name? It sounded like a bunch of different instruments all played at once. I don’t think I could make that noise, and I don’t even need vocal chords to speak!”

The girl smirked at him. Not everyone could be as cool as she was. He could still float though, which was pretty neat. She patted his hand consolingly and gave him a thumbs up. He looked down, before shoving her back and out of reach.

“Alright, enough wasting time. Weird name or no weird name, I’ve still got your soul and you’ve still got a job to do. Now get to it, brat!”

With a swirling motion, he disappeared back into the ground, just as her hand almost closed around the tip of his tail. Dang, she’d almost gotten it that time!

The girl shouldered her umbrella and looked out into the forest. Well, she was sure to run into him again soon. With a flourish of her hat, she set off to find the first place on her map.

oOo

“Wow, you really do love getting caught in those traps, don’t you, kid.”

The girl glared at him. It wasn’t her fault – he made them hard to see on purpose!

The Snatcher coiled his body over her like a smug rainbow made out of purple jerk. “I was going to let you off easy, but if you’re so eager to work for me, we might as well draft up another contract!”

With a poof of smoke, another scroll appeared before her. She grabbed it with a glare and started to move for the pen, before he snatched it away.

“Ah ah ah! Why don’t you write your name in normal letters this time, just so that I can know for sure that you’re not trying to wiggle out on our deal.”

What? But she had written it in normal letters! She’d even used her best handwriting. It wasn’t her fault that his weird letters were dumb and stupid. She stamped her foot and glared at him, daring the ghost to challenge her.

“Whoa hoh hoh, looks like someone’s got a big temper for such a tiny kid! But don’t you think you should be picking on someone a little bit more… your own size.”

Suddenly, that grin didn’t look nearly as silly as it had moments before. As if on cue, the empty place inside her chest ached. Uncomfortable, she looked at the paper again. Some of the weird tiny letters looked kind of similar to the ones she was used to. Maybe she could smush some of them together and that could work?

She grabbed the pen and started tracing some of the letters to try and get their shapes right. She wished she’d gotten more language-learning time with the girl she’d met when she first arrived on this weird planet. They hadn’t managed to get much past the basics before the hooded girl had figured out what the Time Pieces did and ran off.

“Get a move on, kid! I don’t have all day. You’ve been staring at that thing so long that you’re making me think you don’t know how to read!”

She flinched. Uh oh. Mmmaybe he wouldn’t notice?

“You don’t know how to read, do you.” Peck.

She hunched her shoulders and braced herself for the laughter. For the calls of not being good enough. For everyone snickering and saying she was too little, too young. For him to decide that of course she couldn’t run the important missions, so why not just give her the baby tasks with the toy ship and let her play house out on the edges of the timestream where she won’t be in anyone’s way.

The Snatcher looked like he was about to say something, then paused. He looked constipated for a moment, grumbled to himself, sighed, and then threw his arms up dramatically. “Well, guess you’re in luck, kid!”

What?

“There’s a group of minions who’ve been bothering me about teaching them how to read. Normally I wouldn’t bother, but I can’t be everywhere at once and the Keep Out signs have been looking lackluster lately.”

The scroll in front of her disappeared, only to be replaced with a new one. This version had doodles of subconites holding various books and letters, looking happy with themselves.

“We have one more slot open for this afternoon’s group, but it isn’t going to come for free!” He turned over, floating on his back and grinning at her from the side. “After the lessons, I want ten new signs all over the forest, telling everyone about how great I am! They’re good for minion morale.”

She- she could totally do that! He’d better- better get ready for some signs about how dumb his face is. All wobbly and distorted. Hard to even see him right now. Dumb stupid face. For some reason he just laughed at her when she stuck out her tongue at him this time. Stupid dumb face.

“That’s the spirit, kiddo. Now what do you say?”

The girl grabbed the pen out of the air, and scribbled her name down on the contract. It rolled itself up and poofed back to the Snatcher, who read it over and stamped his seal at the base.

“Well then, that seals the deal! Now what are you waiting for, Kid? Get to work!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally a bunch of short oneshots, but I think I've found a way to bring it all together for a finale.


End file.
